Republican Rep. Ralph Norman kicked off his campaign for South Carolina governor Sunday, pledging to take on the political system and bring a businessperson’s approach to state government.
“I’m running for governor to shake things up,’’ Norman told a rally crowd in Rock Hill as supporters cheered and repeatedly shouted his name. “We’re going to clean up Columbia, and, finally, we’re going to take down the corrupt political establishment once and for all.”
Norman joins a rapidly growing Republican primary to succeed term-limited GOP incumbent Henry McMaster in the deep-red state. Already in the race are Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, state Attorney General Alan Wilson, the son of Rep. Joe Wilson, and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell.
Another Republican member of the South Carolina congressional delegation, Rep. Nancy Mace, told “Fox News Sunday” that she will make a decision on running for governor in the next few days.
“I may be forced to run for governor because I can’t watch my beautiful red state of South Carolina go woke,’’ she said.
The winner of the Republican primary will be heavily favored in the general election in a state where Democrats last won the governorship in 1998. McMaster won a second full term in 2022, defeating Democratic former Rep. Joe Cunningham by 17 points. State Rep. Jermaine Jackson is currently exploring a run for the Democratic nomination.
Norman is the third member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus to announce a bid for governor this cycle. Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Byron Donalds of Florida are also seeking their respective states’ top elective office in 2026, and both have already collected the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
Norman’s relationship with the president is more complicated. While he praised Trump during his speech Sunday, Norman is a close ally of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and was one of just two House members who backed her during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries. (He endorsed Trump after Haley dropped out of the race.)
More recently, he was among the fiscal hawks who voiced concerns about certain spending provisions in Trump’s signature domestic policy achievement, saying it would increase the deficit and result in “mortgaging our future.” He voted in favor of the final budget reconciliation measure earlier this month.
“While the [Senate-passed version] fell short of what I had hoped for, I made a judgment call: deliver immediate tax relief now and keep fighting for the rest,” he said in a statement.
Norman, a wealthy real estate developer, leaned heavily into his business background during his remarks Sunday.
“If you’re going to change the system, you cannot be part of the system,’’ he said. “I owe nothing to lobbyists. I owe nothing to the Columbia bureaucratic elite. My allegiance is to you the people of South Carolina.”
He said his campaign platform would seek to root out corruption, institute term limits for state legislators and change the way state judges are selected – from a system that largely empowers state lawmakers to one in which voters would directly select most judges.
Norman’s campaign rolled out two high-profile endorsements Sunday, according to The (Charleston) Post and Courier, boasting the support of Haley and former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. Norman was also introduced at his rally by former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a founding member and former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus who later served as Trump’s White House chief of staff.
Norman, who served nearly a decade in the South Carolina House, was first elected to Congress in 2017. He narrowly won a special election to succeed Republican Mick Mulvaney, who resigned to become White House budget director in the first Trump administration. It wasn’t Norman’s first run for Congress, though – he lost a bid for the 5th District in 2006 to Democratic Rep. John M. Spratt Jr.
With his bid for governor, Norman leaves behind the now-safely Republican 5th District, which borders North Carolina and includes several fast-growing suburbs of Charlotte. Norman won a fourth full term last fall by 27 points as Trump was carrying the district by 23 points, according to calculations by The Downballot.
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